Police seize $60,000 in bogus note haul
Police seize $60,000 in bogus note haul
JAKARTA (JP): Police announced on Wednesday the seizure last
week of counterfeit American dollars totaling $60,000, in $100
denominations, from a 61-year-old resident of Bekasi.
Chief of Jakarta Police detectives Col. Alex Bambang Riatmodjo
told reporters that the arrest of Imansyah on April 18 at his
home on Jl. Bandeng II in Malaka Jaya subdistrict, Bekasi, was
made based on a tip-off from two other men who were arrested
earlier in the day.
The men were detained for red-handedly attempting to illegally
sell a Smith & Wesson gun along with eight .38 caliber bullets to
undercover police personnel.
Alex, however, failed to explain why he released details of
the arrests to the media a week later.
He identified the first two suspects as Teguh, 32, a resident
of Jl. Bukit Duri in Tebet, South Jakarta, and Supaji, alias
Burik, 30, of Jl. Tebet Timur, also in South Jakarta.
"The two were arrested by officers from the crime and violence
unit at 11 a.m. on the same day," Alex said.
According to the unit chief, Maj. Dharma Pongrekun, the story
began last month when the police received reliable information
about a firearms syndicate in South Jakarta.
Dharma then assigned some of his men to go undercover. The
officers met and persuaded Teguh and Burik to sell them a
firearm, he said.
"We nabbed the two when they were conducting the transaction
with us near the Bekasi Barat football field," Dharma told
reporters.
During police questioning, Teguh and Bukri named Imansyah as
the head of their illegal business. Police then rushed to
Imansyah's house in Bekasi, he said.
Besides apprehending the prime suspect, the police also found
the fake U.S. banknotes and several pieces of equipment, such as
printing machinery, printing paper, liquids and photocopied
serial numbers, allegedly used to produce the counterfeited
greenback notes.
Police, Dharma said, were still probing the case to find the
possible roles of more of Imansyah's syndicate members in the
counterfeit money business.
So far, he said, Imansyah had been giving false information to
the police.
Police, for example, checked an address on Jl. Pramuka, East
Jakarta, following Imansyah's testimony that he got the equipment
and the printing paper from a man at the address named Piping
Saragih, whom he met some "four to five years ago at Piping's
restaurant."
The police, however, were later informed that Piping died two
months ago, reportedly of a drug overdose.
Imansyah told reporters on Thursday that he bought the gun in
late 1994 from a man called Keling in Klender, East Jakarta, and
since then had been waiting for a buyer.
But Dharma said that his officers were fed up with Imansyah's
lies.
"He, for instance, told us that Teguh and Bukri were his
middlemen ... whom he employed. Why then was he unable to sell
one gun in six years via these men?"
"We believe that this whole 'Piping' story is just nonsense,
and is a cover-up," Dharma said.
In an unrelated development, city police arrested one man on
Wednesday for possession of a .9 caliber FN gun and 20 bullets.
The man did not have a legal permit for the weapon and was
apprehended at his residence in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta.
Alex identified the suspect as Bagio Susanto, 24.
The suspect is thought to have bought the gun for Rp 2.5
million ($300) from a noncommissioned officer, Nanang
Abdorrochman of the Indonesian Navy West Fleet, in Bandung, West
Java.
Nanang, who was arrested by Bandung Police earlier in April,
said he purchased the gun for Rp 1.5 million from a man
identified as Harlan bin Omar. Harlan was arrested by Bandung
Police in late March. (ylt)